Express Scripts Inc., one of the largest managers of prescription drug benefits in the U.S., introduced a program designed to cut medical costs by identifying the chronically ill patients most likely to neglect medicines within a year.
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The ban on electronic prescribing of controlled substances has made many clinicians reluctant to adopt e-prescribing at all. Controlled substances constitute about 10% of all prescriptions written in this country, and incorporating separate paper and e-prescribing systems and separate methods of record-keeping can be very inefficient.
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"People tend to have very strong views about mail-order pharmacy," said Julie Schmittdiel, PhD, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) in Oakland, Calif. "Much of it is based on economics, not research.

A broad coalition of consumer and labor interest groups is putting new pressure on Congress to force new transparency requirements on the pharmacy benefit management industry.
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Many patients go without their prescribed medicine due to the slow or ineffective service of mail order pharmacies, according to a survey of just over 400 patients conducted by the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA). The findings both raise troubling questions about the impact mail-order programs have on patients and contradict two purported benefits of mail order: increased convenience and lower costs. The survey found 48% of respondents who were...

Some health plans and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are working to develop new ways to promote mail-order fulfillment, responding to slowing growth in mail-order penetration, one PBM consultant says.
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Like other forms of medicine, pharmacy has the privilege of being among the most ancient professions. It’s been a regulated health service since at least 1235 in Europe. Almost everything in medicine has changed since scribes in the Middle Ages recorded the work of those first pharmacists. Most changes have been good. We are grateful that the practice of using leeches has ended. Yet, there are also practices many of us miss, like physician house calls.

Retired teachers in Texas are concerned about the CVS contract with the Texas Retirement System. Read the story here: "Teacher groups wary of CVS contract with state..."
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